Immediately after Donald Trump ordered a military strike in Venezuela, many critics focused on how that attack violated international law as well as the US War Powers Resolution. But there hasn’t been nearly enough focus on the domestic implications of Trump’s move.

Trump seems to have ordered his Venezuela venture in part to flip the script away from domestic matters, where things aren’t going well for him. His approval ratings are under water, and he’s getting low marks on the economy, health policy (just 30% approval), inflation (31% approval on the cost of living), his immigration crackdown (41% approval) and his sending the national guard into US cities. Then there’s the big thumbs down that Americans are giving to his tariffs, which have helped push up prices even though candidate Trump promised to lower prices on day one.

With his plan to capture Nicolás Maduro, Trump sought to chalk up an easy victory to make himself look good. But his efforts to flip the script aren’t going so great. A Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that just 33% of Americans support his military strike in Venezuela, with 72% saying they’re worried the US will become too involved there. The US attacked Venezuela on 3 January, and an Economist/YouGov poll from 2-5 January found that among US men, Trump’s approval rating rose 4 percentage points from the previous week, while it fell by 5 points among women.

With Marjorie Taylor Greene leading the way, many Maga folks have criticized the Venezuela attack, seeing it as a betrayal of Trump’s “America First” promises. Many of them supported Trump in large part because he promised no more forever wars, no more misguided foreign ventures and an overwhelming focus on domestic issues.

After the Venezuela attack, Greene noted that past foreign entanglements resulted in US troops getting bogged down and “many flag-draped coffins com[ing] home”. She said that when she voted for Trump, she voted for “no more foreign wars, no more regime change and putting the American people first”, which, she said, meant helping people “afford healthcare” and helping them be “able to buy a home” and to “live the American dream”.

Many Maga supporters will be asking hard questions about how in the world Trump’s attack on Venezuela will help them. It certainly won’t do much to bring them affordable healthcare – an issue where Trump and Republicans are on defense after lawmakers stubbornly blocked Democratic efforts to extend subsidies for Obamacare, a move that will increase premiums for more than 22 million Americans. The Venezuela attack will do little or nothing to improve affordability, although Trump boasted that he would commandeer – some might say steal – up to 50m barrels of oil from Venezuela to, he hopes, help push down gas prices a bit. (Trump says he’s gotten Venezuelan officials to agree to this.)

Some Americans will no doubt applaud any effort to reduce gasoline prices, but many must feel uncomfortable with the way Trump is doing this, adopting the philosophy of a schoolyard bully: since I’m bigger than you, anything you own is mine, unless I let you keep certain things.

Let’s not forget, with Zohran Mamdani and other Democrats winning big on affordability issues in November, Trump is supposed to travel around the country to give speeches in which he, if he can keep to the script, boasts that he cares big-time about affordability. For the moment, those plans seem deep on the back burner, while Trump’s focus is Venezuela, Venezuela, Venezuela and oil, oil, oil.

Americans aren’t blind, and they can see that Trump’s military strike was largely about helping an industry that many Americans detest: the oil industry. Many Americans, including Maga folks, support democracy and freedom, but Trump has made crystal-clear that that’s not why he attacked Venezuela. Instead, it’s to help multibillion-dollar US oil companies, which Trump has already done massive and myriad favors for.

Many Americans will no doubt grow increasingly upset with Trump’s Venezuela adventure after he suggested that US taxpayers might pay billions of dollars to help ExxonMobil, Chevron and other US oil companies rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry (and thereby help make tons of money for themselves). Trump sounded tone-deaf to the concerns of US taxpayers when he said: “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent, and the oil companies will spend it, and then they’ll get reimbursed by us or through [tax] revenue.”

If the Democrats are smart, they will make the case loud and clear that Trump’s Venezuela attack is all about helping giant oil corporations while doing little to help average Americans. The millions of young people who are deeply concerned about the environment and global warming will grow angrier still at Trump because, with his Venezuela power play, he is once again doing everything he can to expand fossil fuel production while showing zero concern about global warming.

Trump’s military strike is essentially a wag-the-dog effort to divert the public’s attention from his problems on the home front. Trump promised to cut electricity prices in half within 12 months, but they have kept climbing since he returned to office. Trump vowed to lower prices on day one, but inflation, at 2.7%, is running just a tad lower than when Biden left office. Trump said he’d chop the budget deficit, but his “big beautiful bill”, with its huge tax cuts for the ultra-rich, is likely to increase the nation’s mountain of debt by $3.8tn.

After the US military’s quick execution of its mission to capture Maduro, things in Venezuela might get far messier and increasingly distract Trump from focusing on the domestic issues, including affordability and healthcare, that Americans care about. Trump gloated in the hours after Maduro was captured, but his Venezuela venture could still turn out to be a quagmire, and even a disaster, just as Iraq did for George W Bush after he prematurely boasted “mission accomplished”. Trump and US oil companies must be praying that some patriotic, anti-imperialistic Venezuelans don’t sabotage and blow up the billions in oil-drilling and refining equipment that Trump says US companies will invest in Venezuela. Such sabotage would be a big embarrassment to Trump.

Let’s hope that Venezuela doesn’t turn into a quagmire with many US troops deployed there, although Trump said this week that the US could be entangled there for years to come and “we’re not afraid of [having US] boots on the ground” in Venezuela. Unfortunately, Trump’s readiness to put boots on the ground in Venezuela could lead to deaths of US soldiers.

As a candidate, Trump promised to “keep our country out of … endless wars” and said “we must abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change”. In his inaugural address last January, Trump said the US would “stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been angry, violent and totally unpredictable”.

Many Americans can plainly see that Trump has reversed course. Like George W Bush in Iraq, Trump is promising a brief military venture and no quagmire. But if Trump, after years of saying he opposes “endless wars” and nation-building, gets bogged down in Venezuela – it might erupt into a civil war – he can expect many Americans, including Maga supporters, to feel angry at, and betrayed by, the America First president.

• Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labour and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues